Page:The Comic English Grammar.djvu/95

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If they "shoot the moon," they are shooting stars.

There is a mode of using the indefinite article a before a participle, for which there is no occasion, as it does not convert the participle into a substantive, and makes no alteration in the sense of what is said; in this case the article, therefore, is like a wart, a wen, or a knob at the end of the nose, neither useful nor ornamental: as, "Going out a shooting." "Are you a coming to-morrow?" "I was a thinking about what Jem said." "Here you are, a going of it, as usual!"

A liberty not unfrequently taken with the English Language, is the substitution of the perfect participle for the imperfect tense, and of the imperfect tense for the perfect participle: as, "He run like mad, with the great dog after him." "Maria come and told us all about it." "When I had wrote the Valentine, I sealed it with my thimble." "He has rose to (be) a common-councilman." "I was chose Lord Mayor." "I've eat (or a eat) lots of vension in my time." "I should have spoke if you hadn't put in your oar." "You were mistook." "He sent her an affecting copy of verses, which was wrote with a Perryian pen."

Adverbs are generally placed in a sentence before adjectives, after verbs active or neuter, and frequently between the auxiliary and the verb: as, "He came, Sir, and he was most exceedingly drunk; he could hardly stand upon his legs; he made a very lame discourse; he spoke incoherently and ridiculously; and was impatiently heard by the whole assembly." "He is fashionably dressed." "She is conspicuously ugly" "The eye